Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Get Your Election Predictions Here

I thought I’d keep track of all the predictions made by pundits and analysts for tomorrow’s election so we could compare them to the actual results and see who is closer. Let’s start with Karl Rove, who is predicting a Romney victory with at least 279 electoral votes:

Desperate Democrats are now hanging their hopes on a new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll showing the president with a five-point Ohio lead. But that survey gives Democrats a +8 advantage in turnout, the same advantage Democrats had in 2008. That assumption is, to put it gently, absurd.

In addition to the data, the anecdotal and intangible evidence—from crowd sizes to each side’s closing arguments—give the sense that the odds favor Mr. Romney. They do. My prediction: Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America’s 45th president. Let’s call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.

He doesn’t give any analysis of which of the swing states Romney is going to win to get to that number, so it’s difficult to nail him down on specific predictions for how this happens.

Dennis Chambers’ Unskewed Polls is going to be particularly fun to watch. He’s making some staggeringly audacious claims, based on his reworking of the poll numbers to assume large Republican majorities going to vote. On October 28, he projected Romney to win all of the key swing states — Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Florida, Virginia and Nevada — and get 301 electoral votes. Hell, he even has Romney winning Wisconsin.

Let’s look at Nevada in particular. As of Oct. 28, Chambers’ “unskewed” analysis had Romney leading by 5.6% over Obama. The RealClearPolitics poll average, on the other hand, has Obama up by an average of 2.7 points. But that’s just the beginning. There hasn’t been one single poll that showed Romney leading in Nevada since April, and that was the only poll ever to show him with a lead. Even Rasmussen, which leans Republican more strongly than other polling companies, had Obama up by 2 points in their last poll.

Similarly in Wisconsin, Chambers has Romney up by 3 points while the average of the actual polls has Obama up by 5 points. And here again, there hasn’t been a single poll showing Romney with a lead in that state in months (there were two that had him up by 1 point immediately after Ryan was put on the ticket in August; they were quickly reversed in every other poll taken since then).

I’ll predict, and I’d be willing to bet a lot of money on this, that Chambers isn’t even close. It’s certainly possible that Romney can win the election, but with 300 electoral votes? Not a chance. He literally has to win every state where Obama doesn’t have an insurmountable lead. Isn’t gonna happen.

Michael Barone may be even more out to lunch than Chambers. He’s predicting that Romney wins in a landslide, by nearly 100 electoral votes. He has Romney winning Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Florida. I want some of what he’s smoking.

Wesley Pruden, who has spent most of his career as a journalist being paid by the recently deceased fascist cult leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, says “All the signs say it’s Romney.” All except the actual polling data, of course.

George Will, usually one of the more sane conservatives, predicts a Romney landslide with 321 electoral votes — including Minnesota, for crying out loud.

Dick Morris says 325 electoral votes and he has Romney winning both Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with a clean sweep of the swing states other than Nevada.

And our old friend Vox Day has Romney winning 305 electoral votes, which requires a sweep of every swing state — including Pennsylvania, which really isn’t a swing state. I wonder if he’s counting the votes of women?

Finally, some of the big meta-analysis folks. As of Sunday night, Nate Silver was giving Obama an 85.5% cahnce of winning and the average number of electoral votes in his trials was 306.4 for Obama.

Folks, I have a flash for you.
The Rethuglicans are going to win Ohio and Florida via their vote suppression tactics, thus stealing the election. If the other side goes to court, they will lose in the SCOTUS, led by Justice Scalia. Mark my words.

It’s going to be fun hanging that Chambers prediction around the necks of everyone who championed “unskewing.” If you go into his state-by-state predictions, he has a lot of states swinging by 12-20 points or more (34 points in Hawaii), the kind of thing you normally only results from a major realignment. He’s also using data all the way back to 1996, as though it were still relevant. Someone told me that the only states Chambers has going to the Dems are the ones that went Democratic every election since ’96, which is indeed “audacious.”

But what’s stunning to me is that there’s people making crazier predictions (I’ll take your word for it on Vox Day – the less I hear from that specimen, the better). It’ll be amusing to see how many of these predictions go down the memory hole by people unaware that everyone and his dog has saved a copy.

Nate Silver has it right, there has to be a systemic across-the-board problem with the polls to think Romney will win.

The real news will be if Sandy reduces enough votes in deep blue states to give Obama an electoral victory with a popular vote loss a la Bush in 2000. The teatards are very convinced they will win, and will consider any loss illegitimate (they’ll blame ACORN again). If they win the popular vote, we’ll see a revolt that will make the GOP’s last 4 years of obstruction look like a picnic.

But for the sake of the Republic, Romney needs to lose, not because he’d be a terrible president, but because his method of pursuing that office is poison for the body politic:

1) Tell whatever group you are addressing what they want to hear even if it contradicts what you told the last group

2) Gish galloping over his opponent with lie after lie

3) Brushing off any real journalists with real questions in favor of playing patty cake with partisans and hiding behind the the completely vacuous nonrespons “I have a plan, but its too complicated to explain”.

The real news will be if Sandy reduces enough votes in deep blue states to give Obama an electoral victory with a popular vote loss a la Bush in 2000.

This is an interesting observation and one I hadn’t thought about; natural disasters can more easily affect a popular vote system than an electoral college system. The electoral college system only gets screwed by a disaster if it unevenly affects Dems/Rebs within a state.

I’ll see you Dick Morris and raise you Roger Kimball, who has Romney at 337, winning Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and part of Maine. (An update has him “wobbly on Michigan”). Just for reference, this, except for Maine, is *every* “tossup” state at RealClear.

My prediction, Obama wins the election by a large margin electorally, winning most of the swing states except Florida and North Carolina, but by less than 1% in the national vote, maybe .9 or .8%.

In the aftermath, the Wingnut Brigade will declare the election was stolen and that we now live in a totalitarian regime just like Nazi Germany. In the more mainstream wing of the party, the election loss will be blamed on not having a “true conservative” candidate running. The next Tea Party like wave will be getting politicians elected who will vow to impeach Obama.

In the more mainstream wing of the party, the election loss will be blamed on not having a “true conservative” candidate running. The next Tea Party like wave will be getting politicians elected who will vow to impeach Obama.

I might be overly optimistic but I predict that the GOP after loosing this election will become more socially liberal, given the demographic problem they are facing it is the only way they are going to survive. I think the hard core Evangelical’s are gonna be kicked to the curb, probably just wishful thinking on that one but a man can hope.

I’m in Ohio and I am predicting Obama will win this state and the others that are close in the polling. I have polling fatigue. I got tired of being called a month ago so I no longer answer my phone if the number is not in my contact list. I doubt my behavior is unusual. I suspect most of the people being polled at this stage are older Republican voters with land lines and no Caller ID.

Here’s what I’d like to have happen: Ohio and Virginia, two of the earliest states to close the polls, go quickly, clearly, and obviously for Obama. Doesn’t have to be big, just too big to be wrong – say 2-3%. If that happens, then a dodgy result in some other state won’t matter; Colorado could be 400-vote-difference recount hell but the larger Electoral College picture will be settled, the only question would be “Did Obama get 294 or 303 electoral votes?”.

Between the voter suppression in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere, the possibility of voter flipping, and the bizarre squirrelliness of the Electoral College (Ties go to the House and Senate! What if a few electors change/lose their minds?), the possibility of a truly bizarre situation, one that dwarfs 2000, is unlikely but nonzero.

Yeah, you’re wishful thinking. I hope you are right, but my money says Romney’s defeat will be met with cries of “RINO!”, and an insistence that next time they nominate a REAL conservative (Santorum 2016!). The transition you (and I) dream of for my former party won’t happen until that happens and they get pounded (insert frothy joke here), and even then I give it even money that the GOP bubble will be so influential by then that they’ll blame the loss on fraud and/or “the MSM being in the tank for the Democrats”, and will do it all over again until they get a Goldwaterlike blowout.

MyPetSlug @23 “My prediction, Obama wins the election by a large margin electorally, winning most of the swing states except Florida and North Carolina, but by less than 1% in the national vote, maybe .9 or .8%.
In the aftermath, the Wingnut Brigade will declare the election was stolen and that we now live in a totalitarian regime just like Nazi Germany. In the more mainstream wing of the party, the election loss will be blamed on not having a “true conservative” candidate running. The next Tea Party like wave will be getting politicians elected who will vow to impeach Obama.”

In all my reading about the upcoming election I have yet to see such a ludicrous, fantastic and idiotic projection. I predict you are spot on!

PS You left out the eleventy million recounts that they are going to demand. Watching the wingnuts heads explode will be fun though.

Doug Little“I might be overly optimistic but I predict that the GOP after loosing this election will become more socially liberal, given the demographic problem they are facing it is the only way they are going to survive. I think the hard core Evangelical’s are gonna be kicked to the curb, probably just wishful thinking on that one but a man can hope.”
Awwww. You’re like the kitty from the ‘Hang in there’ poster.

Yeah, you’re wishful thinking. I hope you are right, but my money says Romney’s defeat will be met with cries of “RINO!”, and an insistence that next time they nominate a REAL conservative (Santorum 2016!).

One interesting post-election analysis will be turnout of conservatives vs. moderates. GOP strategists (vice ideologues) can only pin a loss on Romney’s RINO-ness if it looks like conservative turnout is relatively low; that would mean the base did indeed get turned off by Romneys swing to the middle. But if conservatives vote in normal numbers and the loss is due to moderates going to Obama, it becomes very hard to rationally make that claim.

I say ‘vice ideologues’ because there will be a faction of the GOP that will say “need to be more right” regardless of the evidence. You could have 100% of the legal population turn up, every non-registered-republican vote for Obama, and they’d still claim the public is crying out for a further right candidate.

In the aftermath, the Wingnut Brigade will declare the election was stolen and that we now live in a totalitarian regime just like Nazi Germany. In the more mainstream wing of the party, the election loss will be blamed on not having a “true conservative” candidate running. The next Tea Party like wave will be getting politicians elected who will vow to impeach Obama.

Re Doug Little @ 24:
Well, I agree with you in the sense that they will have to at some point out of practicality. Their main demographics are shrinking and the Democratic demographics are growing. Nate Silver had a good article on how the Republican base might be just slightly too small to get a majority now. However, I don’t think this election will cause them to re-evaluate their main party planks. If it was Santorum running, then it might haven’t been a different story, but for now they can still blame their losses on Romney not being a “true conservative” and since it’s the easiest explanation to accept, even if it’s not the real reason, it will be the reason that gets the most traction. This is, after all, what conservatives will *want* to hear after the election.

How the Religious Right gets kicked to the curb, well, I don’t think that, precisely, will ever happen, but how social issues might be de-emphasized, I think that might happen when a Republican candidate gets success by doing that. So, in that respect, if, say, a Chris Christie runs in 2016 as an unabashed social moderate fiscal conservative and wins, then you’ll see more candidates like him. But, I don’t think it will be a conscious party decision. Success will bring imitation.

I predict that Obama will win the election, with 270.5 electoral votes to Mitten’s 268.5. But in a surprise move, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court will rule California to be unconstitutional, thus handing the election to Romney, who in turn will hand over the presidency to Mormon Jesus. In turn, Mormon Jesus, known as MJ to his friends, will hand over the presidency to brother Mormon Satan. Since Obama is the Satan in every known religion, he is in fact also Mormon Satan, and thus Obama will ascend to the throne, and will usher in an age of darkness lasting roughly 14 hours and 15 minutes, starting at 5:00 EST.

Doug Little: I might be overly optimistic but I predict that the GOP after loosing this election will become more socially liberal…

I think I saw that movie. The GOP demands the car keys back. The wingnuts pull over to the side of the road just long enough to boot the GOP out, then they drive off while laughing maniacally. I forget which movie it was; it was the one with the fat stupid southern sheriff in it.

There’s an additional batch of semi-sane predictions here from the WaPo, including two medium-whacky conservative ones (one from a GOP operative, one from a the WaPo ponies bookie) and one absolutely whacky liberal prediction from Jim Kramer. Nate Silver’s responded to that one on Twitter….

Yeah, I know what you mean. It seems to be a bit of a consensus so far that there could be 1-2 more election cycles where the GOP go even more wingnut. I guess when you look at the ability of them to process information realistically this is probably a pretty fair bet. If that happens and there are no major disasters for the president I guess you could expect an even bigger victory for the Dems in 2016. It’s probably gonna take a massive loss for them (GOP) to see the writing on the wall rather than an in depth look at the stats. It’s gonna be interesting either way. I wonder what the possibility of a complete collapse of the party is if they do try and become more moderate on social issues. They have painted themselves into a tight corner, It will be interesting to see their exit strategy.

How the Religious Right gets kicked to the curb, well, I don’t think that, precisely, will ever happen, but how social issues might be de-emphasized, I think that might happen when a Republican candidate gets success by doing that.

Bah, they’ll outright abandon some of them, just without admitting it. In a few cycles the GOP will be the party of ‘We Have Always Been In Favor Of Gay Rights.’

The pessimist in me sees Romney eking out a narrow victory, but the realist in me sees an Obama victory that’s just comfortable enough to silence mainstream Republican cries of fraud (the wingnuts will claim it no matter what the margin).

But if Romney does lose, there will be no casting out of the Tea Party or Religious Right from the Republican Party. There will be disappointment all round, sure, but the wingnuts will be the ones to come out all guns blazing not the establishment moderates. The narrowness of the defeat will once again convince them that the moderateness of the candidate was to blame (along with an able assist from Gov. Christie down the stretch) and that there is still a strong conservative majority out there waiting to be tapped.

Hence I just don’t see any swing to the left for the Republican Party in the near term future. If anything, there is still a pretty good chance that 2016 will see a conservative Republican nominee who will pull the same “I’m a moderate really” trick that Romney pulled and actually get elected.

I think it’s going to take two or three real wallopings at the polls to convince the Republican establishment that perhaps its time to rethink their alliances with the right-wingers, and that might not be for several elections yet. The best we can hope for is a good four years for Obama with a rebounding economy, followed by a strong Democratic nominee to build on that legacy. That’s a lot to hope for, of course, but you never know.

This, from a website that actually banned people for too vociferously supporting Romney during the Republican Primaries:

Father, we thank You for the election and we thank You for the opportunity to elect Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan as President of the United States and Vice-President of the United State, respectively.

We thank You for the large crowds, enthusiasm and energy among the electorate. We thank You for the victory that shall come. We thank You that Your Word says that the wicked will be taken away from before the king/government and we thank You that it is established in righteousness, in Jesus’ Name.

We thank You for the voting that shall be taking place and we declare that it is free from electoral fraud, in Jesus’ Name, and that the voting process will be smooth and without incident.

We thank You that Romney and Ryan will win in a landslide and that they shall win states that Republicans have not traditionally won, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, and we thank You that other states like Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida will vote solidly for Romney, in Jesus’ Name.

Thank You, Lord, for blessing America with new leadership with righteous men and women, in Jesus’ Name, AMEN!

How the Religious Right gets kicked to the curb, well, I don’t think that, precisely, will ever happen, but how social issues might be de-emphasized, I think that might happen when a Republican candidate gets success by doing that.

Religious conservatives aren’t going anywhere. They’re one of the few Republican blocs that’s growing, they still run much of the party machine, and kicking them out doesn’t help with Hispanics and blue-collar workers, groups that the GOP needs to work on. We may well see social issues de-emphasized in the next cycle, but it’s too early to make that call. There’s always the possibility (small, but present) that we’ll see some sort of realignment in the next four years, and that could put wedge issues back on the table.

As to the GOP ridding itself of crazies in general…well, we all kind of expected that after 2008, but then in 2010 the patients took over the asylum. And really, don’t disregard the 2010 elections – Obama will probably win, but that doesn’t mean the pendulum isn’t swinging back.

I like Jim Cramer’s prediction, as it’s the only one that would likely lead to the Republican’s kicking their extremists to the kerb. I also like the unicorn he was riding when he came up with those numbers.

My Tuesday predictions: Obama wins 303 electoral college votes and 0.5-1.5% more of the popular vote. Florida goes Republican due to voter suppression, Ohio doesn’t succumb, Red Cadeaux to win the Melbourne Cup.

Full disclosure: I’m a Melbournian and I’d bet a whole lot more on my election prediction than my Cup prediction.

The Repubs best chance to get their party back was to nominate Bachmann, Perry or Santorum, which would have resulted in an Obama landslide. Assuming Obama wins, Romney will be blamed as not just a RINO but a CINO and the extremists will be even stronger the next time around.

My own “poll” is my brother, a staunch republican, called me on friday and told me he voted for Obama because he thinks Romney’s fucking nuts. I also have not gotten any crazy ass e-mails that my brother-in-law usually forwards from my batshit KKKrazee teabaggist uncle. Totally unscientific but prolly as accurate as anyone else, I see Obama winning.

I predict that American liberals will once again end up screwed by sir Robert Hanlon and his magic blade.

Step One: Nate Silver turns out to be almost exactly right: Obama wins the national vote by around 2% (50,5% vs 48,5%, the rest to third parties’ candidates), Romney manages to win Colorado but loses Virginia.Step Two: Then the Republicans will start shouting “Obama stole the election!” while thinking “Shit: democracy really sucks, we better find a way to rig more heavily the results starting from now”Step Three: Their efforts to rig the electoral game will thus become much more blunt and obvious, and will not cause any sort of principled outrage from the conservative electorate.Step Four: American lefties will wonder how republican voters can be in such denial of reality, concluding once again that its because the poor, poor right-wing sheeple are too ignorant and stupid to realize what’s happening, completely failing to realize, once again, that the conservative base is aware of its standard bearers attempts to cheat and supports these
.Thus, once again, millions of people who should know better by now will be cut by Hanlon’s razor.

If the repubs do ramp up the crazy in the next election cycle how would they hope to win. That’s another 4 years of younger voters coming onto the rolls. I just don’t see this country trending any further right.

Deny the obvious all you want, but Romney will clearly get over 1,000 electoral college votes to Barack Obama’s 5! Yeah, I know that there’s only 538 electors, but that’s what will be so miraculous about Romney, he will get more votes than there are actual voters. Clearly a sign from God that only a Mormon president can save America!

I didn’t see this forecasting house listed: DeSart and Holbrook Election Forecast
Their final forecast comes tomorrow at noon MST, but right now it is right in line with 538’s: O 290, M 248 in electoral college with O at 87.69% chance of winning it; national popular vote predicted at O 51.37%, M 48.63%.

Obama wins the electoral college and many (most?) of the swing states incl. Ohio.

Romney wins just a few of the other swing states and, narrowly, wins the popular vote. 51-to-49% or so.

So we see a reverse of the Bush-Gore 200 election outcome.

Obama gets four more years.

Mittens Rmoney gets the Republicans finally cutting loose and saying what they *really* think of him but have been too afraid to say whilst he’s still running. Massive Rebublican fury and shit throwing game post election.

Also too that the Tea Party marks the “Extinction scream” of a certain “conservative” mindset. They’ve reached or even passed their zenith now and post 2012 election fade away as quickly as they emerged ,i>(or quicker) being replaced by a more moderate and balanced opposition to the Democratic Party as the USA starts shifting its Overton window back towards the political centre.

Now that the election is pretty much signed sealed and delivered, well to the point that Romney is drawing to an inside straight on the river, what’s the chance we will see a woman candidate in 2016 say Hillary Clinton?

What I would like someone to keep track of is all the things Romney has said he will do on the day he is sworn in or the first day after he is sworn in, and if he wins, make a tally of which “day one” promises he keeps.

I think his “I’ll say anything to get elected” campaigning has written a lot of checks the Office of the President can’t actually cash. There’s that whole check and balances thing from the constitution that gets in the way.